Corpach to Kerrera and being sociable

For once, tide times were kindly. We needed to get through the Corran narrows heading south before the tide turned against us too much, preferably just before it turned so the ride would be as calm and whirlpool free as possible. Wow, we could leave at 10am! Such a treat. We were sorry to leave this view though, from our aft cockpit:

Another coaster arrived to disturb the peace before we departed:

and one yacht headed into the Corpach sea lock, heading into the Caledonian Canal, filling the lock chamber with some nice exhaust smoke:

Good job they were alone in there. Either that engine needs a good hard run or some serious surgery. Maybe both. 

We had a nice tidal help through the narrows (11 knots) then headed down Loch Linnhe and tucked inside the smaller islands towards Oban and Kerrera. There are several shallow areas between the islands and the mainland and that makes the auto routing function in Time Zero (our PC navigation package) go crazy and add loads of waypoints to keep within the pre-set safety depth:

Each number is a waypoint, trying to build a route and keep 6 metres of water under our keel. We tend to use the automatic route as a "suggestion" and then heavily amend it or totally ignore it. The system is smart but doesn't know about important things like where overfalls are likely to happen, firing ranges, places peppered with pot markers etc etc. A lot like an AI internet search really.  It always feels strange when after travelling for under a minute, the depth drops from over 100 metres to this:

We didn't manage to go aground, with or without the help of auto routing. Here is the little lighthouse on the mainland at Port Appin:

Officially it is known as Sgeir Bhuidhe lighthouse but as we can't even begin to pronounce that....

The views across to Lismore were lovely, less so in a picture but this brings back happy memories for us as we were enjoying a flybridge trip all the way, bar 15 mins of a light rain shower around the Corran Narrows. All very good indeed:

We had to thread our way through the shallow areas and had the typical "yacht under power who thought they had the right of way" encounter. The rules of the road are clear, if they are motoring and not constrained by their draft, they are effectively a motor boat and have to behave that way. Only they don't all seem to understand that. This one wanted to push us into a very shallow area, then gave a wave as we passed him after a course alternation that should have been his to do. Such is life. Looking back, it seemed like the autopilot was holding a pretty straight course, you can tell that the stabilisers were not on - or indeed needed for any of the journey:

We arrived in Oban bay perfectly timed to avoid all the ferries. called Kerrera and had our berth confirmed as on the water taxi pontoon. We duly backed onto it and had a late lunch, in time to watch Colin and Carole arrive with the mighty ship Albatross:

We hit the Waypoint restaurant together for dinner and retired to Albatross to test their red wine stocks and give their two dogs some attention:

Sorry Izzy, but she was so cute and loves cuddles.

Maintenance News:

There are four bolts that hold the genset frame onto the base of the noise reducing cocoon. The captain found that the nut and washer from one were laying under the genset - they had vibrated loose and totally unscrewed - there was a lot of thread spare so this must have been happening over quite some time.

Refitting it is amusing. The gap between the base of the cocoon and the boat structure it is fitted to, is just the height of the anti-vibration  mounts. They are a teeny bit over the thickness of the captain's palm thickness. That means squeezing your hand under there, feeding the washers back on, then trying to refit the nut whilst the washer wants to fall off. A dob of thread locker was added this time to try and prevent going through the same fun again. We'd wanted to fit a nyloc nut but funnily enough, didn't have any 9/16th AF in stock. The joys of an American boat with American main engine, the same Japanese base motors for the genset and wing but marinised by Americans. We have an odd mix of metric and AF hardware on board.

As a precaution, the rest of the bolts were tightened up. The captain then had a shower - under the genset is not an area that gets cleaned at all.....